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The Aeroplane

English Essay on "The Aeroplane"

Nowadays marvellous scientific discoveries come upon us so thick and fast, that we have almost lost the capacity for wonder. Yet although aeroplanes are almost as familiar to us as motor-cars. We cannot help stopping and staring whenever an aeroplane, humming like a great bee and flashing in the sun, passes over our heads. And it is well indeed that we should wonder for how marvelous a thing it is that men have conquered the air and can now fly in the sky like birds! And this has been done in our own day for the invention is so recent that, if people had been told only twenty Five years ago that we should be flying to-day, they would have laughed the prophecy to scorn.

The invention of the aeroplane will bring about as great a revolution in men’s habits as that of the railway engine and the steam-ship a hundred years ago. Then the world shrank -in size; for, whereas in the old clays of sailing vessels. England was six months away from Pakistan, it is now only three weeks away by steamer and railway, train. But the size of the world will shrink much more now, When iii a few sears’ time we have a regular air service between Karachi and London. England will be only five days away. What a difference this will make to trade and commerce, to men’s habits and their views of things.

So much for times of peace. But it is in the conduct of war that the aeroplane will bring about the greatest revolution. Aeroplanes played an important part in the latter of the Great War, although when the war began the invention was only a few-years old. But when the next war comes, it will be largely a war in the air. Frontiers, fortresses, wire-entanglements, the ocean itself, will be no protection to any country. A fleet of battle-aeroplanes, loaded with poisonous gas and tons of high explosive bombs, will be able to wipe out a great city in a few minutes. And then man’s wonderful conquest of the air, the should have been nothing but a blessing, will prove a curse, and his undoing.